Workshop to preserve Tiwa language (fwd link)

[Scott Delancey]

This isn't an issue in NE India. Communities usually are pleased to
have this kind of thing happen, because having their language published
in some public form gives them status in the eyes of their neighbors,
and more importantly of the government. So, for example, a community
looking for state support for a community language program will get a
better hearing if there's a dictionary or grammar of the language in
print. (They won't get any actual support, of course, but the
bureaucrats will be more polite about it). 

I get e-mails from minority
language communities in NE India asking me to find them a linguist to
write a grammar or dictionary, it's something everybody is eager for.
Linguists always want to do grammars, but typically the community is
most interested in having a dictionary. 

Anyway, nobody has any sense
of possessiveness about language. Most people speak at least 3-4
languages, and you expect people to know at least a little bit of the
most important ones. So if your home language isn't one of the major
ones, you'll consider it a compliment if somebody from outside the
community knows it. 

On 2013-07-20 15:14, George Ann Gregory wrote: 

>
Has any body checked with the Tiwa speaking people to see if they want
this done. Some of the Pueblos have restrictions on how the language can
be displayed and by whom. 
> 
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 10:01 AM, Phil
Cash Cash <weyiiletpu at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> WORKSHOP TO PRESERVE TIWA
LANGUAGE
>> 
>> TNN | Jul 19, 2013, 12.23 AM IST 
>> 
>> INDIA 
>> 
>>
GUWAHATI: Anundoram Borooah Institute of Language, Art and Culture
(ABILAC) has initiated a workshop on Tiwa language for a comprehensive
trilingual dictionary to develop and standardise the endangered language
and to a preserve and propagate it among the community. 
>> 
>> Access
full article below: 
>>
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/guwahati/Workshop-to-preserve-Tiwa-language/articleshow/21152237.cms
[1]
> 
> -- 
> George Ann Gregory, Ph.D.
> Choctaw/Cherokee
> Fulbright
Scholar
> 
> "...everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an
herb to cure it, and every person a mission. " Mourning Dove
(Salish)

-- 

Scott DeLancey, Professor and Head
Department of
Linguistics
University of Oregon 1290
Eugene, OR 97403-1290,
USA

541-346-3901
delancey at uoregon.edu
http://pages.uoregon.edu/delancey/



Links:
------
[1]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/guwahati/Workshop-to-preserve-Tiwa-language/articleshow/21152237.cms
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